I was just playing as a male Emperor of the Wendish Empire. In short, I died and I can't for the life of me figure out how this game decides to distribute titles.

To start, before I died I had two daughters. The eldest daughter died before me so her son, (my grandson), became next in line with my second daughter in line after him. Fine.

So I die. What happens? Well, my grandson gets the title of Emperor and all my personal demesne but my second daughter gets both the Kingdoms of Poland and Lithuania, which is pretty much everything in comparison. I'm sure I missing something obvious here but my sucession laws were Agnatic-Cognatic Primogeniture. My grandson was born legitimately to my eldest daughter and through a matrilinial marriage so WTF? Why didn't I inherit those kingdoms as I should have?

sounds like your on gravelkind which splits your releam apart as I can see. Once you become a emperor you should have changed the laws on the kingdom titles to something else and destoyed them. King vassels are bad to have as they will attempt to either to break free or become the new emperor. Each king/emperior title has its own crown laws even empire one has say max and kingdom and wales has low ca the vassels in wales can still attack your direct vassels. Each empire title and kingdom title has it own sucession law also.

Theres laws for the empires succesion and for the individual kingdoms.. so the individual kingsdoms prolly had gavelkind succession

If that is the case then it's a horrible mechanic. Imperial Law should always trump regional and if it doesn't, for God's sake give me a warning or something game! Even with all that it would still make no sense that the secondary claiment would inherit BOTH kingdoms leaving my primary heir "Emperor" of the realm in name only.

With two full kingdoms behind her, how could she not rebel? Good thing I had an ♥♥♥ load of money to hire mercenaries, though even with Poland back in my hands, she still has Lithuania. I couldn't take it because that would have been tyranical... Even though she was the one who rebeled against me... Sigh, I really don't care for the game dictating the terms of my victories for me.

For future reference, how does one change individual kingdom laws once you're an empire? I really hope it doesn't pull that crap where I can only change one Crown Law per reign. I am an Emperor! Not a King! The game better treat me as such or there will be cheatery.

Before I become a king I usually set my succession laws away from gravelkind asap then make king title. I dont upsurt king titles unless I need to like Kingdom of norway which has Island top part of map which I cant holy war and etc without having the title. This also lets me attack the Uk counties without FB a claim in southern Uk to just get a foothold.

You can't really do that with Poland though. The best you can do would be switching to Ultimogeniture since in Poland it's required that you have High Crown Authority before you can switch to Primogeniture for whatever mundane reason. If you're a Count or Duke in Poland it is so far past unlikely that your liege will ever have enough support to crank up that crown authority to high.

Therefore, if you take the crown, you still have to switch both the authority law, and then the sucession law. Once you do, you can't do it again until you die and become someone else. So since I took all of Poland and Lithuania in one reign, AND formed the empire, there was no way I could have avoided that civil war knowing only what I did then. It would have taken a full three generations before my empire would be free from just that one particular form of sucession crisis. That's preposterous. It's like punishment for being too good at the game. (Which I'm not, really.)

If you do not understand that feudalism was mostly an accumulation of different territories with different rules and laws, it might be disturbing. But oviously territories under your rule might have different succession laws.

No, I'm sorry. That's not how feudalism works. Upon the death of the Queen of England, the Crown of Scotland isn't going to pass to the Duke of York instead of the Prince of Wales. If the King of Scotland was originally a vassal to the Queen of England then it might pass elsewhere, but that was not the case for me. I held both of the King titles. Primogeniture should have ensured that each title should have passed directly from grandfather to legitimate grandson, as it would do for example: if Prince Charles died before Queen Elizabeth, all of her titles would pass to Prince William.

No, I'm sorry. That's not how feudalism works. Upon the death of the Queen of England, the Crown of Scotland isn't going to pass to the Duke of York instead of the Prince of Wales. If the King of Scotland was originally a vassal to the Queen of England then it might pass elsewhere, but that was not the case for me. I held both of the King titles. Primogeniture should have ensured that each Kingdom should have passed directly from grandfather to legitimate grandson, as it would do for example: if Prince Charles died before Queen Elizabeth, all of her titles would pass to Prince William.

Edit: I get that Kingdoms have their own laws. There's a certain legalism there, especially so if those kingdoms were my vassals, but if I possess both Kingdoms and Crowns and then say we're reforming into an Empire with Primogeniture as the law, those former laws should and would be overridden.

kingdoms have laws, customs, by themselves... you can change them, takes time. Usurpating a ealm title is always dangerous, especially if on a primogeniture succession law. And even without it, changing the succession law will botte many of your vassals. Sticking with gavelkind or salic succession might be (if not wiser) funier some times.

edit : and the game actually tells you aout lost teritories upon succession.

Not in this case it didn't. That only applies if titles pass outside your realm. The difference, small as it may seem, is that she was still technically my vassal... with a 97% chance to rebel (sans hyperbole) and for all of three minutes after hitting unpause. And of course, because she owns both kingdoms she had strong claims on all my stuff too. Again, how could she not rebel?

The main issue I take with this is not so much how it works, but rather that you get no warning of this.

Edit: Whether laws of the empire should override laws of a kingdom is another matter, one that I'm sure people will disagree on, but from a gameplay standpoint alone it's much less convoluted. Personaly, I don't think it should take one-hundred and fifty plus years to form an internally stable empire. Laws of the land are, what the Emperor says they are. Especially when the Emperor owns the land.

So you had no waning at all that some vassal holding two kingdoms was about to rebell? Why would you even give her two kingdoms in the first place? If not (wich seems odd), just kill her and (if in salic succesion) should buy you some time... Anyway you should have see it coming.

No, that is the vassal inheritance warning you're talking about. In your case there must have been another type of warning called "Title Loss on Succession". It is represented by a broken shield. It tells you which titles you're gonna lose and who are gonna get them.

Edit: Whether laws of the empire should override laws of a kingdom is another matter, one that I'm sure people will disagree on, but from a gameplay standpoint alone it's much less convoluted. Personaly, I don't think it should take one-hundred and fifty plus years to form an internally stable empire. Laws of the land are, what the Emperor says they are. Especially when the Emperor owns the land.

Actually imperial laws are applied... The hundred yea thing is to consider territory "de jure", nothing to do with laws...

Edit : and if you think emperor of the Holy Roman Empire dicted their laws....